World of the dead rewrite
by shadow hunter483
Summary: Chapter 5 is now up. PLEASE REVIEW. Its the only way I know people are reading. A revision of a first person account of the first infestation to the new age of mankind.
1. Chapter 1

Authors note: I started this story about a year ago. It was not well written and I stopped when school started. But I've decided to rewrite it and to make it better. Tell me what you think.

Twenty years. Man has it been that long. My wife told me to write this. Its not a nice story to tell, but it works. Hey the world seems fine now but man twenty years. That's how long it took us to reclaim this world. Twenty years. We fought with everything we had and still, the world is full of them, in the oceans and in the red zones. We spend months clearing them out, but they are still there. But I'm getting carried away. My name is Dan. No nothing fancy nothing cool. Just Dan. No I didn't save hundreds of people and no I'm not some sort of big hero. If I was, you'd have heard of me. Some of you might know my nickname the shadow. It wasn't my idea. Still don't know where that came from. I live in northern Canada now near the Arctic Circle. Ironic since I grew up in California. I bounced around the US so much in my youth. Still I can remember it.

I was in college, 19 and enjoying my life. I had a job and friends and I was getting an education. It was a Thursday. It was quiet that morning. I woke up early to get my stuff ready for my 7:30 class. My roommate was asleep. Didn't really look over since I knew someone else was there as well. Yea he was the party freak. I was the semi-reclusive nerd. I can't remember how it started but I do remember riding my bike and hearing a scream and seeing the fires in the distance. Cars were zigzagging around and people were running franticly. Then there was the roar and a man lunged at me and tried to bite me. I did know some martial arts. Just what I had picked up from self-defense courses in high school. Anyways I threw him off and into the path of a passing car. It hit him and his head exploded when the tire ran over him. The driver didn't even stop to look. He just kept going. I got back on my bike and rode back to the dorms. It was a mess. It took me less than ten minutes to ride back to the dorms, but the zombies were already there. I rode a bike because I wanted to save on gas, and I like the exercise. Anyways, I ran to my van and threw my bike in the back. I drove off avoiding the zombies as best I could. I remember going onto the street and seeing the chaos. Cars driving wildly while zombies fed on the victims of the ones who crashed. Still other pounced on my car and I floored it in a effort to get away. I hit the highway and saw the chaos there, Accidents had clogged the roads and the zombies were closing in.


	2. Chapter 2

I drove for about two week. There wasn't much left to do. I had to use the local roads and unused highways because of the pack freeways. There were some people left alive. Some. The rest, well I think you know. I stopped to rest whenever I got the chance. Usually an abandoned gas station or a supermarket, I tried to stock up supplies whenever I could. After a few days I had amassed enough to hopefully to get to somewhere safe. It was about a week and a half after I had gone on the run that I met her.

I had stopped at a gas station. In my previous supply gathering trips I had managed to pick up a fire ax from an overturned fire truck and a police shotgun I had picked up from a dead cop in a looted Wal-Mart. Ammo was low, but I conserved it by not using it as much. I saw a run down station that seemed to be intact and by the looks of it hadn't been raided. Always looking for a chance to top off my gas tank and my reserves, I pulled up in front. Grabbed my shotgun and slung my ax onto my back with a strap I fashioned out of some rope and a belt. The front door was locked, but I didn't see any signs of life, living or undead. I didn't want to waste a shell or attract any zombies breaking down the door so I went around back. There was one he was busy pounding on a trailer. Seeing my opportunity, I pulled out my ax and in one clean motion chopped off his head. The radio reports had said that the head was the weak point. After I parted his head from his shoulders, I stomped on the skull to make sure he was dead or at least more dead than he already was. He didn't have any useful supplies on him.

The back door was unlocked so I went inside. After seeing one, I entered cautiously. The lights were out and the switch didn't work. I flicked on the flashlight on the end of the barrel. There wasn't anything moving dead or alive. I walked towards to counter to activate the pumps to hopefully get what little gas was left. As I turned on the pumps, I heard a sound. I whirled around and aimed my shotgun and there staring me in the face was that of an old friend pointing a .45 at my head. Her name was Kathryn. We had known each other in high school, but lost touch in college. She was as surprised as I was. It took us a few seconds to come to our senses and lower our weapons.

She was alone like me. She however had been walking. She had been separated from her family on the highway and lost touch with them when the zombies swarmed the interstate. She had managed to grab her father's .45 when he was killed and took off down the highway. We caught up for about two minutes when a group of zombies attracted by out talking attacked the station. I activated the pumps so I could at least fill up my tank. We ran out the back shooting one zombie in the process. There were only a few of them so we took them out. I told her to fill up the tank while I covered her. A few more zombies came running around the station so I fired at them. I had some practice from my previous encounter a few days prior. Shooting was a skilled I learned to perfect early on.

When the tank was full we both piled into my van and took off down the road. I still had no idea where we were going to go, but now at least I wasn't alone.


	3. Chapter 3

We drove for Weeks on end non-stop. One sleeping one driving. The engine couldn't take much more and I knew it. The Army had shut down a lot of the freeways and the major roadways. We were attempting to find our way around using the local roads. The engine finally gave out as we neared the Central Valley. The zombies weren't numerous here. We took that as a good sign. We dodged what zombies there were and pushed the van to an auto body shop. There were some supplies there, fuel, oil, and some tools. I did my best repairing the engine. I didn't know much about cars. Just what I had picked up from a few of my friends who were gear heads. I gave it an oil change, refilled the anti-freeze.

It was here that we met up with, well for lack of a better term, people. Drunken teenagers of all things. They were in a pick up blasting zombies like it was a game. They hadn't spotted us and I wanted to keep it that way. I had a feeling that having an encounter with them would lead to a few problems. I called Kathryn back inside, switched off the lights, and locked the garage door. We both hid in the garage weapons at the ready. I had maybe ten shells left in my shotgun and she was just as low with her .45. I pulled my ax off of my shoulder and set it on the floor. I had added a fire poker to the top when we raided a Wal-mart. We heard them driving by. They stopped in front of the shop. I cursed under my breath and flicked the safety off my shotgun. They realized that the door was locked from the inside and tried to break it open. I hoped that they would just give up and go on with their business. No such luck. Shotgun blast and a few kicks got the lock off and they opened the garage door.

They saw my van and thought that they had hit the jackpot. Another car to go joy riding in. I at least had the sense to grab the spark plug before I hid so at least they wouldn't have the pleasure of ruining my car. They tried to start it but it didn't work. I thought they were going to leave, when one came in through the back door. He didn't see me, but he saw Kathryn. Well they descended on her like maggots on a carcass. I jumped out from behind my hiding place and aimed my shotgun at them. This wasn't good. It was five on one and they were heavily armed with shotguns, pistols, and a few military grade assault rifles. Not good at all.


	4. Chapter 4

So there I was aiming a shotgun at a bunch of teenage punks who had found Katie and I in that dank dusty garage. I gave them a warning and told them to leave. They weren't convinced and hey neither was I. Well they thought it was funny at first I mean think about it. This one scrawny guy with a partially loaded shotgun against five crazed teenagers I mean would you be afraid. Well they sure weren't.

I stood there for about a second as I racked my brain to find a solution to this problem. I mean I was outnumbered, they had a hostage, and I was low on ammo. It seemed like hours, it was really seconds, and I still had no idea what I was going to do. It was then that one of those crazy bastards tried to come up behind me with a baseball bat. I saw him through the reflection on my windshield. I jumped to the side as he brought that Louisville Slugger down right were my head was. I turned and hit him in the face with the butt end of the shotgun. That set his friends off. One brought his pistol up, I pulled the trigger on the shotgun, the pellets flew out and hit him in the gut and he fell back. I was ruining on adrenaline and pure instinct. My skill with the shotgun wasn't that good. I had learned to load and fire it in the days prior out of survival. So the four remaining guys raised their guns. I shot another and that seemed to scare them off. They shot at me through the door and ran out. Right into the waiting jaws of the nearby zombies they were harassing. A few stumbled into the garage so I fired my shotgun. Katie managed to get her .45 out and dropped a few as well. The shotgun ran out fast and I searched franticly for another weapon. I used my ax to drop a few more. As I stumbled back I tripped on one of those punk's assault rifles. It was a G-36. I didn't know how to use it, but I grabbed it anyways. I flicked the safety off and fired. More were attracted to the noise and we decided to make a run for it. Katie game me cover as I franticly reinstalled the spark plug in the van. We both piled in and drove away.

We didn't talk much after that Katie and I. I just wanted to drive it all out of my head. I shot someone. Not a zombie, I had gotten used to that a few week earlier. But I couldn't drive out of my head the guys guts hanging out of his stomach. His screams as the zombies descended on him. We drove onwards. Onwards into the future.


	5. Chapter 5

I think we drove for another week or so until we started to run out of gas. Most of the area we were in was out of fuel. We hadn't talked in a while. I think she understood what I was going through. I never did get their names, but I couldn't get their faces out of my mind. The fear, the pain, the chaos as they realized that they were going to get eaten, their screams as the zombies tore into their flesh and eyes. God their eyes, the screaming was normal, it was something I had gotten used to, but their eyes. They conveyed the most fear I could see.

We were almost out of gas when we turned the street and wound up next to a college parking lot. It wasn't anything new, we had seen and passed dozens of buildings and many like the college in the distance were heavily fortified. But I think the thing that made it different was the column of college students carrying homemade shields, hand weapons, and wearing homemade body armor. They were locked in what appeared to be a phalanx and were stabbing a mass of zombies. This caused us to stop. I mean think about it. A mass of college students locked in an old Greek fighting position taking on a mass of zombies oh and they were winning. Well we watched for a while, until some of the zombies noticed us and attacked. Now it had been a few weeks since the initial outbreak, so there were mostly shufflers, but every now and then you would run into a few runners. Well conveniently we ran into runners. About half a dozen rushed our van and we couldn't get away. I shifted into reverse and tried to peel away, but more came and soon we were surrounded. We probably would have died if it hadn't been for those college students. Another group managed to fight their way to the van. I grabbed the G-36 and the shotgun. The rifle had three clips all stacked next to one another and the shotgun was almost empty. We stumbled into the middle of the phalanx and it was then that I really got a good look at this mass of warriors. The shields were chunks of metal, car doors, normal doors, tables, and a variety of other things and their weapons were the same. It was amazing. Well we gave them some support I dropped a few with my rifle and we moved towards what appeared to be a safe zone. It was amazing. They had fortified the entire campus and had a massive network of safe zones, weapon stockpiles, evac zones. I mean it looked as if someone had sat down and really thought this structure through.

Well Katie and I managed to get a hot meal for the first time in a few weeks. We also got a shower and managed to get a nice warm bed. I think I slept normally for the first time. It was nice I guess.


End file.
